‘Wasn’t sitting right;’ Local man living in direct path of hurricane explains why he evacuated

FLORIDA — Thousands of people are trying to get out of Florida as Hurricane Milton is expected to make landfall on Wednesday.

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As reported on News Center 7 at 11:00, Centerville native Matt Girouard, who now lives in Florida, said he was planning to ride out the storm.

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He decided to evacuate after finding out his home and school were in Hurricane Milton’s direct path.

“Normally, I like to be a true Midwesterner and kind of watch the storms go by as I have with the previous four hurricanes that I’ve been able to live through, but this one just wasn’t sitting right,” Girouard said.

Girouard is a volleyball coach at IMG Academy, a sports academy for middle and high school-aged students, in Bradenton, Florida.

He said he made plans to come home to Ohio, but that meant leaving the kids he cares about in Florida.

“Luckily, I coach the older kids, so I think they’re a little bit more mature in understanding. Some of the younger kids, I still think are a little afraid, but I think most of them got out of town for this one. There are still some student-athletes who stayed on campus, and they put them over in their tennis and basketball facility because it was built just a few years ago and is able to withstand a Category 5 hurricane,” Girouard said.

Students who stay on campus will have access to a mattress, food, and other essentials.

Girouard said school staff will stay with them so they’re not alone.

“You can imagine some of the fear that might be in some of those kids,” he said.

Girouard said the academy is very proactive when it comes to hurricane preparations.

“Putting the preparations in and making sure that the kids are as safe as possible. So, once it looked like …things were really going to get bad, we made sure that we could tell the kids to evacuate if they’d like, which is very important because we have kids from all across the nation and world,” Girouard said.

As of now, the plan is for kids to have the option to go back to class on Monday or join online.

News Center 7 will continue to follow this story.

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